BIRUBI is a building + design practice working across new residential projects, secondary dwellings, renovations, extensions and interiors.

Our practice was started by Dave Byrne. Dave is an award-winning builder with over 25 years of experience in residential construction.

We’re a small tight knit team of carpenters and creatives who share the same values and passion for a home well built.

We design for people. We build for place. Made for the subtropics.

DESIGN FOR PEOPLE

Good design fosters wellbeing (the mental ease that comes from a functional space, the dignity of feeling pride for home). Good design fosters community (spaces to gather, an awareness of heritage and culture). Good design facilitates joy and functionality equally. The measure of good design is how well it supports the people who use it.

BUILD FOR PLACE

The subtropics are a playground. It’s summer 80% of the year. We celebrate what the subtropics make possible; more time outside, more freedom for fun, backyards masquerading as dining rooms, pool yards giving lounge rooms a run for their money. We embrace this wild, wonderful climate and respond to it using simple, functional practices and honest materials.

We base our decision making on these principles:

ADAPTABILITY

Create layouts that can adapt to changing life stages and inhabitants, for daily use organise spaces so they can be used in multiple ways.

MATERIAL SELECTION

Select locally sourced, hardwearing materials that age well both aesthetically and functionally. Use recycled, reclaimed and salvaged materials whenever possible.

CLIMATIC RESPONSE

We address the site and respond to it using passive design principles.

PEACE

Find moments a solitude throughout spaces, give people the chance to regulate outside a bedroom.

SOCIAL CONNECTION

Complementary to the latter, design for spontaneous human interaction. Create spaces that encourage conversation and connection through colour, views, communal gathering spaces, texture.

ANTITODAL

Be the antidote to overly serious, overly styled architecture. Replace the anxiety to fit a mould with the joy of designing and building for people + place.

Birubi owner and builder Dave seated on a residential construction site on the Sunshine Coast, with building materials and equipment in the background.

Dave Byrne

Owner

QBCC Qualified Builder

Birubi design lead seated in the Sunshine Coast design and build studio, surrounded by building material samples, product references and books.

Annie Hartley

Design Lead

BA Architecture

Birubi site lead and qualified carpenter Krissy seated on the steps of a residential project, with a cordless drill nearby on site.

Krissy Gaudiosi

Site Lead

Qualified Carpenter

Birubi site lead and experienced builder Aaron sitting on bricks at a residential design and build project in Doonan on the Sunshine Coast, with his foot resting on dismantled scaffolding between brick walls.

Aaron Dober

Site Lead

Qualified Builder

A young man with curly hair smiling, sitting on a construction scaffold, wearing a dark t-shirt, shorts, and work boots, on a building site with construction materials and a brick wall in the background.

Pedro Galvao

Carpenter